The Crafter

You find yourself stranded on a planet. An unknown planet. A dwarf planet. No TARDIS, not enough material to build a vortex manipulator, no escape.

I miss my phone you think, for you’ve lost it hours ago when you were trying not to fall from a pit. It was a Nokia 3310, which you got from a muddy planet called Earth, only you’ve modified it so now it has a camera and access to internet and other ways of communication. Oh, you’ve also dyed it purple and made it a sonic device.

— I really miss my phone…

If only you had your phone, you could have used it to send a distress signal. Or maybe even summon your sister’s old TARDIS to come pick you up. But you lost your phone. In a pit. A pitch black pit. There’s nothing you can do now… About the phone, I mean. You’re smart, you’re still going to find a way out of this place.

You’re at a junkyard. Yes, it’s not a mechanical junkyard. Okay, I’ll admit it, it’s a graveyard. Dead bodies decomposing all around. But maybe — just maybe — you could use this in your favour. Maybe build an organic sort of signal? Maybe a vehicle? No. Not enough materials. Only skins and eyeballs. That’s disgusting.

What’s that over there? … A sontaran? What’s he doing here? Is this a battlefield? Let’s have a look at it. Maybe he’ got some sort of teleporter on him.

… Nope. Just plain old dead and harmless sont-

— AAAAAAH! LET GO OF MY HAND!

— Pink skinny boy! You must help me get up! — he says.

— What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead. This is a graveyard. — you say as you help him up. He looks very injured, his armor broken in many spots.

— I have no recollection of ever travelling to this disgusting terrain! Those are not the bodies of my enemies! — he looks scared as he says it. You know, as in a sontaran-scared sort of way, if they even do get scared. Maybe he’s just baffled by the situation.

— I also don’t remember how I got here. I was at my lab building something and then…

Long pause to breathe in and come to terms with the situation.

— … Then I was hanging from a pit and lost my phone. I was lucky I didn’t fall in it myself.

I really miss my phone.

— I was beheading a filthy zygon in the battlefield, gloriously! — the sontaran pauses. He stops to think. And then:

— Why are you pointing your gun at me?! — you say as you put your hands up in surrender.

— You are obviously the mastermind behind this mischief! Send me back to where I came from right this instant, boy!

— Okay, first of all, I’m a girl.

— You pink thinglets all look the same to me! — as he points the weapon closer to your face, you see it is absolutely broken. You put your hands down.

— Alright. So what do we know so far? Neither of us can remember arriving here. This place is obviously a humongous graveyard. Seems like so for the entirety of the planet. … Can you remember anything else?

The sontaran puts his broken weapon down, as he realises he cannot scare you in any way. Smart move for such a potato-headed lifeform.

— I remember… A voice. Can you hear it too?

And then, suddenly, we both realise why we’ve both been shivering the entire time we’ve been on this planet. The disturbance in our minds, and the little headache that comes with it. A flashback flows inside our heads.

The sontaran, in the middle of the battlefield, sees a sort of portal opening alongside a tree. It’s a tiny portal, but enough to fit himself through. A regular sontaran would have never noticed it, but this one is different. And he seems mesmerised by the apparition. He approaches it. A voice invades his mind and tells him to come closer. He cannot deny the voice’s order, as if it is controlling him. …So he gets sucked in.

Same thing happened to you, you recall. Well, kind of.

You opened the briefcase. A marvel of gallifreyan engineering. You would certainly win prizes for this. Become a renowned Time Lady. Well, that is if any of the suck-up Time Douches would ever take you seriously. But, as you open the suitcase, the TARDIS you’ve compacted inside it is not there. No. There is a strange… Red little place. It smells awful. But the same voice tells you to go in and you cannot deny it, nor fight it. So you jump. Jump straight into a dark pit. That’s where your phone falls out of your pocket, and you already know the rest of the story so far.

— Can you hear that voice? — you ask the sontaran.

— Yes. But it’s… Not quite a voice. Is it?

— It’s like a thought. But not my thought. Someone else’s thought. Inside my head.

— Exactly. — he says, as we notice we’re doomed.

It usually takes longer for them to notice me.

— Who’s that? Show yourself, puny lifeform! — the sontaran seems legit scared by now. Which is weird, because his species doesn’t feel afraid. So this voice, whatever it is, must be meddling directly with his source code, his DNA as you might say.

What you see is what I am.

— A bunch of corpses?! That is preposterous! — the sontaran feels the need to point his gun at the sky, even though he knows it’s broken and that the voice in our heads probably does not possess a physical form.

You seem awfully quiet. Planning an escape, maybe? You won’t make it, though.

The voice is obviously speaking to you.

— What are you? — you finally ask. — A kind of telepathic lifeform? Alright. And you feed off of… ?

You look at the corpses spreaded all around. What do they all have in common? What are you not seeing?

Then you see it.

Ah, so you finally noticed it.

— Is this how you feed? No. Not feed. You’re not from my dimension, so you probably don’t need feeding. You thought I wouldn’t notice the stars?

— What about the stars? — the sontaran asks.

— Look at the sky. There aren’t any. And it looks teal. How could there be light if there’s no sun nor a giant lamp? It’s a different dimension.

Good thinking. You’re different from the others.

— What have you done to them?

The voice pauses.

Enjoy you last minutes, before you perish.

— Why did you kidnap us? All these people?

Resistance is useless. You cannot call for help. All the others have tried.

— Do I look like all the others to you? — you say, trying to convince yourself that you’re confident enough to escape this situation.

— I am not… Feeling… Well… — said the sontaran, whom you forgot was there for a moment. Then he fainted.

You kneel and caress the sontaran’s head. There’s not much else you can do for the moment.

— Don’t worry… You’ll be alright. Trust me.

— You know, boy, I see now… What you saw before.

— Shh.

— The heads… They’re… Melted.

— I know.

— My head is melting. Howcome yours isn’t?

— You arrived here much before I did. I’m sorry. Seems like you’re going first.

— This isn’t even a proper battlefield. — he wishes for a more dignified death.

At this point you thought the sontaran would start crying. He, of course, didn’t, but you did as soon as he closed his eyes. You swipe a tear off your cheek.

— So you consume people’s minds for… Fun?

Knowledge.

— Of what?

Your universe.

— You seem pretty self-sufficient here. Why meddle in with other dimensions?

Power.

— Oh, I see. So you’re a dwarf planet that doesn’t get taken seriously by the much larger ones around. So you want to become more powerful. And you do it by… Consuming other dimensions?

On point. You are the cleverest I’ve seen so far.

— We're not so different, you and I. I go through the same thing on my planet. You see, I’m a scientist.

Interesting.

You can feel it feeding off your brain.

— Yes, quite! For you see, I consider myself to be the smartest person in my planet.

I know. I see your thoughts. Remarkable!

— Thank you. And, as you’ve probably seen in my mind, I am attempting to get out of here right this moment.

It’s amusing.

— Yes! Well… BYE!

You start running.

There is nowhere to go. Only me. I am everywhere. I am in you.

— Don’t you think is a bit rude to enter my head without my consent?!

You will perish. Not matter what you do.

— I may perish, but not today.

You enter a cave and suddenly the voice is no longer in your mind, your headache eases, but you can still feel it’s presence all around.

This is easy, right? A bit too easy. Maybe it wants you to do this. Maybe it’s allowing you to do this. Playing with it’s meal.

The cave starts shining a bright red light. It’s pulsating. Like a heartbeat.

— Oh, so you’re alive after all. No, please, don’t talk. I wouldn’t be able to listen anyway, since you’re no longer in my mind. I’ll just talk to myself like I was before, thanks. Let’s see what we have here…

As you go deeper into the cave the red light gets stronger and so does the pulse. The floor trembles like an earthquake.

— Oh, hello there! — after some time, you finally reach the hearts. Four of them, beating in unison. They’re made of stone and magma. A huge pool of lava flows in front of you. — Okay, so I can’t go this way.

You really thought you’d have a chance in here?

The voice is lowder now. It is no longer inside your head. It’s echoing.

— Who, me?! No, never. Not at all, sir.

You are not smarter than the others, as it seems.

— Apparently I am not.

I cannot see into your mind.

— But you are still talking to me, annoyingly.

You see a little purple reflecting light on the floor, all the way around the lava pool. You must get to the other side.

— Anyway I can get around all the way over there?

Why would I help you? Your knowledge of your universe is so… Tasty. There’s just so much. You will melt slowly and deliciously.

— Oh, you’re welcome then. I’ll get by on my own, thanks.

You see a path that’s been made with tiny scraps of metal on the walls around you. They help you climb to get to the other side.

There is no point. You won’t succeed.

— Heard you the first time, mate.

Get in the lava.

— Nope.

NOW!

— You can’t tell me what to do here. We’re at the core. Your powers may flourish at the surface, but in here, you have no jurisdiction. The eye of the storm, mate.

You will be here forever, then.

— Will I, though?

Yes.

— You sure?

Yes.

— I wasn’t the first to come here, was I?

There has been another.

— Yeah, I can see that.

As you climb down the wall on the other side of the lava pool you finally find something useful: scraps of metal. Maybe of an old spacecraft. The previous owner must be the one who put the scraps of metal up the wall.

— Did they drown in the lava?

Yes.

— Poor mate…

You will suffer the same destiny.

— Pretty sure I won’t, sorry. … OH!

You find your phone, the shining purple light, in the middle of the scraps. No signal, but the other features still work. Looking upwards, you cannot see the hole of which your phone fell from. So it must be very high up.

I’m getting tired of this. Leave the cave so I can feed.

— Never had anyone say NO to you before, huh? Must be agonising.

You feel the creature is very mad. Then, you notice the lava is starting to rise up. You may only have a few minutes, or less. You need to build something fast. The metal scraps will help! But you’ll also need… Found it! Yes, an old compacted reactor. This ought to do it. Enough energy source, combined with the artron energy that surrounds your body, plus a few sonic waves from your phone and…

… Nope.

Didn’t work.

There’s so much more to a vortex manipulator than artron energy. The lava’s almost at your feet. You need to climb. NOW! RUN!

Resistance is useless.

— Tell that to my back as you watch me leave! — you’re climbing as your life depended on it, because it actually does.

No more metal scraps on the wall. You need to climb by hand. Scientists usually aren’t very strong and muscly. Your breath is getting heavier.

Think fast.

— So your plan is to acquire enough knowledge so you can, what, how exactly will you consume my universe?

Silence.

— Hello? Are you there?

As you climb using both your feet and only one hand, you use the other hand to try and send a distress signal from the device you’ve created. It’s coornidate calculations may not be precise, but they may be enough.

— Talk to me, Dwarfie!

Do not call me that.

— Touched a nerve there, huh?

I will burn you. Slowly.

— Sorry mate, not today!

You manage to teleport yourself out of there, but not far enough. Not back home. Just outside of the cave. The lava is leaking towards the exit.

— Don’t you burn yourself doing that? — you say as you run as far away as possible. You see your sontaran friend is still alive, so you try to wake him up.

— What is happening?

— We have to go, potato!

— I can’t move… — he says, depleted.

— Quick, get in! — you hear a voice coming from behind you.

You look and see a blue box, very tacky, but you’d recognise that type of machine in any dimension. You already know to whom it belongs to. That annoying guy from the Academy. He used to walk around with his “gang”, and you never quite understood them. They all had extremist ideals, and that scared you. That one guy was the least scary one among the group and he seems sort of nice, even though he talks a lot and tries to look smarter than everyone all the time. But, right now, he’s your only chance of survival. You help the sontaran up and take him into the blue tacky TARDIS.

— What is this place?! It is bigger on the inside! — the sontaran screams as he starts to get better, the TARDIS shields protecting his mind from melting any further.

— Doctor, don’t go just yet! — you say to the old school mate. — This… Thing. It wants to consume our universe! We have to stop it.

— Have we met before? — he asks, completely ignoring your previous statement, as expected.

— We don’t have time for this! Let’s kill this thing!

— I’m not a killer. I am a rescuer.

— I know. You look like a dorky professor wearing that bowtie. But this is time to stand for our people! Our very existence is at stake!

— Right. — he says, and then starts messing with the TARDIS console.

— Do you even know how to pilot this ship? — you ask. He just looks so helpless.

So you take your phone and go inside, deeper into the ship, looking for a workshop. It’s easy to find. After a few minutes, you come back with a device capable of blowing the entire dwarf planet, while The Doctor is still getting “readings” from the TARDIS panel.

— You take too long to do stuff.

— How did you build that syrovian bomb so quickly?

— You didn’t even know you had the equipment for it in here? — you laugh at his puzzled face.

You’re ready to throw the bomb.

— WAIT! — The Doctor screams. — I was scanning and-

— I saw.

— Let me talk! I was scanning it and apperently Dwarfie-

— That’s what I call him!

— Stop interrupting. — he fixes up his bowtie as if to seem smarter — Dwarfie here has been opening portals to suck people in from other dimensions. And the more he sucks, the stronger he gets. We just need to find a way to lock him in this dimension.

— And how do you plan on doing that?

— I don’t know yet.

— The lava! It’s getting closer! — the sontaran screams, pointing his finger at the opened door’s direction.

— There’s no time to think. Let’s stick to my plan, Doctor.

— We don’t have to kill it! — The Doctor seems mad at you.

— Look, I’ve met Dwarfie. He’s a jerk. His dimension will be better off without him.

— It’s at the doors! — the sontaran points out that the lava as getting through the TARDIS shields.

The Doctor, in an astonishingly heroic way, grabs the bomb from your hand and points his sonic… Screwdriver? At it. Then he throws the bomb out and closes the TARDIS doors. We leave.

— What did you do? — you try to make sense of what just happened.

— I reversed the polarity of the bomb. It’s going to implode, leaving the planet’s consciousness alive, but without a body. That means it can no longer use its physical form to create portals and drag people in. That is, if I’m right.

— Clever. But if you’re wrong, you just killed it.

— Like you said, there was no other way.

— You seem nicer then you did at the Academy. I’ll admit that.

— Who are you? How do you know me?

— Adelheide. But you can call me Heidi. Or, The Crafter. That’s what I call myself. You’re pretty famous back home. Well, infamous would be a more precise way of putting it.

You shake his hand.

— Nice to meet you, Heidi. — The Doctor smiles.

— And I am Strax! Now put me back on the battlefield or I will finish your pinkish lifeforms!

You both smile, as Strax feels dizzy and has the need to sit down for a while. You’ve just made a new friend.